Chapter 16

16

Ididn’t speak to Mike for the rest of spring break, and it broke my heart.

A little piece of me cried out for him, missing him, wanting to go to him and demand a real explanation for what happened instead of the lies he tried to feed me. Had I really seen him kissing Persephone? Or had Melia and I both made a big mistake?

Then I remembered. I’d seen him kissing Persephone. He couldn’t bear to kiss me even though we’d come close several times. No, he’d been content with teasing me, with leaning in close and giving me looks hot enough to have me melting. All a tease, all a game. Persephone was the one he’d chosen instead of me.

It was enough to keep me in my bed or avoiding the places I knew Mike would be.

Hell, it was enough to make me sick.

But as the days progressed and I didn’t feel better, I knew the truth. I was literally sick, and I never get sick. My head ached and I couldn’t swallow.

The day before classes were due to start up again, I woke up feeling pukey, achy, and with a sore throat like I’d chugged a vat of acid. And it still wasn’t nearly as bad as the first time I’d taken the potion from Barbara, but close enough I stayed in bed to rest, hoping it would go away.

Nora peeked over the edge of my bunk. Afraid to get any closer in case I spewed germs her way. “I’ll tell our teachers you won’t be able to make it in today but you are going to have to get a note. You need to go to the nurse.”

I dragged my blanket tighter around me. My arm muscles were sore and the blanket did nothing to fight off the chill. “No can do,” I insisted. Trying not to cough and each word dragged out of me by force. “I’ve got a big day ahead.”

She glanced at the door, then back at me, then the door again. “Want me to get you anything? Some chicken noodle soup? Some orange juice?”

Yes and yes. I’d love chicken noodle soup. “Just the juice,” I said.

Too much garlic in the soup.

“Okay, you got it. Stay here.” Nora hustled off to grab the juice and I took the opportunity to catch a quick cat nap.

A couple more hours of sleep would kick this thing, I thought to myself, shivering.

The sick didn’t go away; if anything, my day of rest made things worse. Every time I swallowed it felt like there were burning rocks blocking my throat, and when I raised a hand to my forehead, my palm warmed beyond normal temperatures.

But I knew for a fact Hoarfrost was going to give us a quiz so I had to go to class the next day. Skipping because I felt like the walking dead wasn’t an option.

“What’s the matter, Tavi?” Persephone’s voice cut through my dizziness. Must have been the shrillness of her voice. “You look like something my dog threw up. Not feeling well?”

I waved her away, unwilling to open my eyes to look at her. Or move. Or offer a comeback. She could go take a flying jump off of a short pier into a drained lake.

“Maybe it’s finally sinking in. You’ve lost. You just feel sorry for yourself, don’t you?” Persephone continued. “Such a sore loser you can’t get out of bed. It’s pitiful.”

From the way her identical group of girlfriends snickered, I knew they had heard about our tussle during spring break. Normally I would wonder what Persephone had to say about the encounter and try to find a covert way to get her to spill. Which would have resulted in a massive argument where I lost.

At the moment, I didn’t care. It took way too much effort to push back the covers and drag myself out of my bunk.

That’s why it took me so long to see: my spell had broken. Staring down at my hands, I realized my wolf wasn’t just prowling beneath the surface anymore. She was there, my shifter senses on high alert despite the cold feeling in my limbs, the leaden weight of them and the goose bumps rising on my skin.

Despite the jabs from Persephone, even my wolf was too tired to retaliate.

Okay, weird.

I gladly flopped down, rooting around beneath the pillow for a new vial. With Persephone and her friends busy getting ready for classes, I downed the vial, the potion tasting disgusting but still better than the sewage Barbara made me the first time around. Then I waited for it to take effect.

Normally the potion worked immediately. Though my vision blurred, I could tell my skin wasn’t crawling the way I was used to when I drank the stuff. Weird that it didn’t seem to be working.

Weird, yeah. Weird and inconvenient and potentially dangerous.

I didn’t wait any longer, reaching for a second bottle and downing it, too. If anyone saw me, I’d tell them it was vitamins. No one saw and no one asked.

It still didn’t work.

Maybe I’d screwed up the recipe this time around? I’d just made this batch and I’d already drank a few of the vials. They’d worked before. What changed? Besides the obvious nasty happenstance resulting in a loss of my friendship with Mike.

Okay, my internal sarcasm meter still worked, at least.

I sniffed the air, unable to penetrate the wall of snot stopping up my nostrils.

“You better get a move on, Tavi. Unless you want to lie in bed all day. Again. That top spot of yours will go to someone who actually deserves it,” Persephone said to me with a snide grin.

I didn’t need to look to know it was there. I could hear it.

“Go away,” I tried to tell her. No sound came out. My throat burned regardless.

It was a wonder I hadn’t punched the girl right in the face before now. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to throw a blanket over my shoulders and climb down to the floor. Nora had been right. Time to go to the nurse. I’d done what I could and this called for professional help.

Still clad in my pajamas, I hurried—as much as I was able to hurry—toward Nurse Julie’s office. Still in my pajamas and without shoes, with Persephone’s laughter playing on repeat in my head.

Julie found me before I had a chance to knock, and from her expression I knew Persephone hadn’t been kidding when she likened my appearance to dog throw-up.

“If this is how the zombie apocalypse starts, then I am not prepared for it,” Julie offered, standing in the doorway. “My goodness, come inside before you scare everyone away with your cough, and the color of your skin, oh my! I’m not one to talk, I know, but fish-gill green isn’t a good tone for anyone. Honey, what’s the matter? Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

“I took two vials,” I told her, every word killing my throat as I shuffled forward. “Neither of them worked.” Then I used the last of my energy to hold up my arm and show her the lack of glamour spell.

Julie ushered me onto the cot in her office—mint-green walls and hardwood floor in a weird contrast to the rest of the castle—and pushed the blanket down to see my face. There were two of her according to my blurry vision, and both of them looked concerned for my wellbeing.

“We’ll see what the problem is soon enough,” she said. Her hand went to my forehead and her mouth rounded at my temperature. “Give me a moment to get my stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. We’ll get you settled the human way.”

“No magic?”

“Magic can’t fight what you’ve got. This is a physical ailment.”

Nurse Julie took me through a series of tests, probing at the lymph nodes under my jaw line before sighing and removing the ear buds, letting the stethoscope rest against her collarbone.

“Good news, Tavi. You have a good old-fashioned case of the flu. It’s normal for the glamour to not work when you body is out of whack.”

The flu? “Are you sure I’m not dying?” I managed to ask her.

She chuckled and turned away from me. “I’m very sure. But thank you for wanting to clarify. You need to stay here for a while, so I can keep you warm and medicated while you rest. We have an on-site hospital ward for this kind of thing. Magic is a wonderful gift and most Fae do not get sick, but your shifter side has enough human to be susceptible to viruses and bacterial strains. And I do not want you going back to the dorm. Get it?”

I tried to shake my head. Really, I tried, but the rest of me trembled so badly from the fever and chill I might have just been sitting still. “I have a test today. Hoarfrost. I can’t miss it or else points will be taken away.”

Nurse Julie scoffed, her wings flickering at her back. “Honey, you’re not going anywhere. I’ll let the Headmaster know to alert your teachers and tell them you are too sick to come to class. Don’t worry, you won’t be docked any points. It’s rare for a half fae to get sick like this but it does happen, especially since you’re supposed to be half human too. Always seems to be worse for us when it does happen. Like the super bugs find us and try to take us down. The teachers will understand.” Julie clucked her tongue. “Spring allergies aside, it is strange for you to get sick this time of year. How odd.”

Yup, me. Absolutely strange. And odd. In every single way.

I was alone in the school’s hospital ward, thankfully, because I didn’t need anyone seeing me without the shield of my potion. My shifter side wasn’t doing much, mind you, but having it visible from the surface was an unnecessary risk. So maybe being weird, in this case, worked to my benefit.

Every breath I took was like swallowing over broken glass. My eyelids were heavy, making it impossible to stay awake. I spent most of the day drifting in and out of sleep, with Nurse Julie coming in periodically to check on me, adjusting the white linen sheets or pressing her hand to my forehead to judge my fever.

I didn’t see her as much as felt her, recognized her reassuring presence accompanied by the snick of a door closing. She left the lights off in the room with the shades drawn, and under the cover of darkness, I tried to recover.

Trybeing the word of the day. Nothing I did helped me in this case. There were no magic spells to dissolve this stupid flu laying me low.

It was after dark by the time I woke up from the fever dreams, covered in sweat. Sitting up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I checked in with my body to see how I felt. Only moderately better than when I’d woken up that morning. Not much of an improvement but Nurse Julie must have worked her special mojo on me. Although my nose had a bit of mucus to deal with, I could finally breathe better despite the pressure in my sinuses.

Still had the sore throat. Still had the cough.

Drawing in a shallow breath, I held the air in my lungs until the pressure built. And felt every cell in my body go on high alert.

Uh oh.

I pushed myself up to a full seated position and waited a moment for my head to stop spinning. Stupid dizziness. I sensed something. Something shifter. And not myself. I didn’t have a glamour to hide the truth.

Someone else. There was another shifter around and it didn’t feel like Julie.

Outside of the spell, my senses were back in full force, and with the flu starting to break, I smelled shifter as much as I could smell anything at this point.

My thoughts went back to Professor Reeds and his half-eaten body. I remembered the previous body I’d seen, the chaperone, with the same kind of wounds, parts of her scattered around the hallway.

Oh hell no. I couldn’t let shifters run wild through this school, no matter how I felt.

At length I sighed and pushed myself off of the cot until my feet landed on the cool floor.

A sliver of fear had my hairs standing on end. What happened if the shifter I sensed…was Kendrick Grimaldi? My heart did a somersault and it felt like I lost a few years of my life.

Maybe Kendrick had found me and he was killing people as a message, to let me know no matter where I went, I wasn’t safe.

No, I tried to console myself. It didn’t fit with what I knew of him. He wouldn’t be sneaky if he was here. He’d say screw the message and cut through the crowd for me directly, shedding blood in his wake.

But he might have sent a goon instead. That was a distinct possibility, but also a risk I had to take because it was either confront the shifter head on or let someone else die because I sensed something and didn’t do anything about it. I would never be able to forgive myself if I stayed in bed and let something happen.

I slowly drew up, still in my pajamas, but at least I wasn’t shivering. After braiding my greasy, sweaty hair and securing it over my shoulder, I wrapped my blanket around me and tried to walk out of the room in silence. Started up the flight of stairs across from the hospital quarter.

Ooh boy, walking wasn’t such a good idea. I wasn’t one hundred percent yet. Fifty percent, maybe, though even that was a stretch. The scent of shifter filled my nostrils and I knew, much as I was forcing the limits of my healing body by doing this, I had little choice. There was no one else around who knew what I knew.

Head pounding, sick as hell, I went out looking for the source of the smell even knowing I was being a total idiot.

Strange and stupid. Those would be the two words to describe me best.

As if I hadn’t learned better from the situation with Roman last semester.

Moving away from the hospital ward, I slinked down the hallways on silent feet, my socks rubbing against the stone floor and the sound muffled. The blanket kept me warm against the March chill as I followed the scent.

Sadly, I knew exactly where it led: It led exactly where I walked, slow and steady, to the exchange student dormitory.

The source of all the troubles.

I stopped at the entrance to the hall when I saw two shapes moving in the shadows, tall gangly shapes eventually morphing into bodies. Male bodies.

Keeping out of sight, I pressed against the wall, not recognizing the two. But I knew the smell.

It was late enough at night neither of the second-year boys exploring the space expected anyone to be awake to see them.

They hadn’t counted on me.

And I hadn’t counted on a coughing fit wracking my body, one I tried to swallow and failed. Both of their heads turned in my direction at once.

Oh shit.

Along with the scent of their natures, I felt their anger. Their fury, directed at me. Our wolves sensed each other and my hackles rose; the ghost of a snarl echoed on my lips.

Though neither of them said anything, they didn’t need to, as they broke away from the door and came at me.

Two against one… I wouldn’t win if it came to a fight. I was still too sick, too weak.

I turned and bolted. As quickly as I was able to bolt. And hopefully I would be fast enough to outrun them.